


The more you know [English translation]

by Deschayne



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Awkward Romance, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Humor, M/M, One Shot, POV First Person, POV Reno (Compilation of FFVII), Post-Advent Children (Compilation of FFVII), Pre-Relationship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29968605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deschayne/pseuds/Deschayne
Summary: "The truth however, is that I can't remember all the real moments. I mean, the ones when I walked upright for the first time and switched to the intestinal-gas-heavy pulmonary breathing, while every conceivable meteorological phenomenon celebrated its debut on my skin. What I do remember in minute detail though, is the moment Rufus Shinra ate a burger for the first time in his life. And that's how everything began. Or rather, how it started anew." The more you know. A love story that is neither Grand nor Magnum. [English translation of my OS "Slumspringer"]
Relationships: Reno/Rufus Shinra
Kudos: 5





	The more you know [English translation]

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Slumspringer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20600816) by [Deschayne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deschayne/pseuds/Deschayne). 



> I would like to thank the word "canola" for existing.

_For Nijey_

  
13 years ago I crawled into the light of the upper plate. I sometimes get the impression people imagine that way too literally, like some kind of time-lapse evolution. That I somehow managed to pull myself up by grabbing the outer edge of the upper Sector 8 - like the first fish that dragged itself out of the sea on its fins - nevermind how I'm supposed to have reached said edge from down below. Or that I climbed the central pillar with the help of some rudimentary claws and accidentally ended up right in front of ShinRa in Sector 0. I did in fact take the route over the pillar, but I was sitting in one of the trains like everyone else, while not even breathing through gills of any sort. It's one of the many prejudices you have to face when you come from down there and can't hide it - and no one who comes from down there, can. It's that telltale dialect, the only true prehistoric remnant we carry with us and can't get rid of, no matter how hard we try. And Gaia knows I've tried, if only for the love of my job, but to no avail. Even if I intonate the words correctly and don't skip any letters, my - by the way totally unforked - tongue forms individual sounds with a slight accent. I can hear that difference when they leave my mouth, but I can't for the life of me build the correct ones instead.  
It isn't of particular importance while on missions in the rest of the world. Hardly anyone out there knows how you sound if you're from down there, and no one looks out for webbed feet either. But here, on this continent, that stigma sticks to you like wet sand to a damn turtle - a Turkle, so to speak.  
Back in my rookie days it used to drive me crazy and managed to hit a spot that was still sore at the time. Until I met a girl named Kelandra during one of those mandatory rookie patrols in Sector 8.   
I was trying to get into her pants, so I pulled every lever that you pull if you're a rookie in that respect, too. Way too many dates, way too much money spent. Even though I never reached my goal and could have blown my load for those wasted Gil in some cheap seabed down there at the bottom of the ocean instead, it had still been worth it - because one evening I invited her to Ifrit's Grill, which used to be an insider tip back then, and ordered a burger. I was moderately drunk and desperately craving some unhealthy junk food to stuff my face with, so I didn't just order any burger, but the Grand Magnum, the flagship, with a double serving of onions. Another rookie mistake that turned our walk back afterward into a very tense experience for me, which only got more tense with each passing minute. When it started raining on top, I was sure all chances to score were gone with the wind I was actually holding in. Good for my wallet, bad for me.   
But she had a real surprise in store for me, when she suddenly said: "I've never seen you in thoughts like that... I bet there's a lot going through your head when it rains.... It must mean a lot to you, even after all this time."  
At first I didn't have the slightest idea what the hell she was on about, due to the fact that I had been busy trying to come up with a plan on how to get rid of all the trapped air in a hopefully discreet manner - I had once read that humans simply exhale most of their abdominal gas and just been toying with the idea of starting to pant in order to squeeze the remaining air into my lungs as well. And also, because rain didn't mean shit to me. Sure, it didn't exist down there, but the concept of getting wet from above wasn't exactly new to me. Even Turkles like me knew showers. And besides, it would've had to hold some significance for me in order to mean something - and therein lay her fallacy! Just because you haven't experienced something doesn't necessarily mean that you ever felt like missing out. On the contrary. So anyways, I was simply standing there with Ifrit's very own hellfire raging inside my intestines, getting wet from above, and she used the opportunity to project some tragic, romantic bullshit onto me. While I on the other hand, immediately went along with it as soon as I realized what was happening. 

And this marked the birth of the "Reno experiences something for the first time"-tactic, that would serve me well for many years to come. 

Reno experiences rain for the first time. Reno trudges through snow for the first time. Reno feels the summer sun on his skin for the first time. Reno stands in the moonlight for the first time. Reno sees the starry sky for the first time. And if it isn't for the first time, he still gets incredibly sentimental at the very least, because it means so damn much to him. Of course you should never lay it on too thick, and I never have. I never fell dramatically down to my knees, arms spread wide, waiting for some drizzle to turn my shirt transparent. Not only would it have taken too long, above all else I would've felt like an utter moron.   
I also never branched into different areas with my made up stories, although "Reno eats a banana for the first time" would have made just as much sense - we really didn't have them down there. I couldn't even say why I always stuck with the sky and the weather. Maybe because Kelandra had set it as an unwritten rule from the very beginning. Maybe because it always worked so ridiculously well, because there was always some weather, unlike bananas within reach.   
The truth however, is that I can't remember all the real moments. I mean, the ones when I walked upright for the first time and switched to the intestinal-gas-heavy pulmonary breathing, while every conceivable meteorological phenomenon celebrated its debut on my skin. What I do remember in minute detail though, is the moment Rufus Shinra ate a burger for the first time in his life. And that's how everything began. Or rather, how it started anew.

It was on the way back from some trade show about little robots. At each of his public appearances some of us Turks and dozens of security gnomes had to be present, but lately he had insisted on riding alone with me in the car. Around the same time he had developed the stupid habit of wanting to be in the passenger seat, instead of simply sitting down behind the divider and confining himself to being important in the most decorative manner.  
Why? So he could grind my gears by chewing my ear off, because that's what it sooner or later boiled down to over the course of every single trip. This time I had taken precautions and conspicuously thrown a bunch of little-robot trade show brochures right into his lap, just to keep him busy, not unlike you'd hand a child some coloring books. For a while he had even pretended to be interested in little robots, even though he had already been doing nothing else all day. But when we reached the next intersection, the brochures disappeared into the glove compartment, and then it began: "That franchise must be quite popular, if they're already opening another branch. In a lucrative location like this, no less."  
I knew right away what he meant. Ifrit's Grill. The burger temple with which I shared this complicated past, and which had long since ceased to be an insider tip. I just wasn't sure what he was trying to tell me by stating the obvious. The explanation followed shortly after, though:

"Reno, did you know that I've never had a burger?"

Even the wording was typically pretentious as well as self-absorbed. _Reno, did you know that...._ Like he was going to tell me some trivial yet enriching, semi-interesting fact about the world we live in. _Reno, did you know that no other place is home to as many species of the Asteraceae family as the Eastern Grasslands area?_ \- which is true by the way, there are over 15,000. In any case, I hadn't known, but his spontaneous confession didn't exactly knock my socks off. What I knew even less was how I was supposed to react. 'You don't say!' and 'Whatever.' weren't really options, so I decided for the sake of simplicity to interpret this information as if it had come from a woman, and offered: "Want me to get you one?"

And he did. 

Maybe this is the best time to mention that there had been some... incident... of sorts between us in the past. No, not _that_ sort. What sort, I'll get back to that later. For now the only important thing is that I was still, let's say, angry at him. Although 'extremely pissed off' would be more accurate. Not a good thing when you have to see someone every day and are expected to work with them on top. To break it down a bit: On the surface we both managed to act in a halfway professional manner, sometimes almost collegial, but on a deeper level we kept waging a war neither of us wanted but none of us seemed to be able to stop either. His weapon of choice was riding shotgun and never shutting up, while I resorted to small, hard to prove acts of revenge. And now that I was supposed to go for him to Ifrit's, with whose risks I was more than familiar ever since Kelandra, I instantly sensed the opportunity for another little act of revenge... 

"Oh, Reno?! No onions!"

...which totally fell flat.

Because Rufus Shinra was a great listener with an even greater memory.

Maybe it would have been more efficient to just leave him behind in the parking lot in the direct sun and forget about him - not unlike how you'd forget a child - but that idea simply didn't occur to me at that moment and besides, it also would have left me unemployed.  
So I found myself sitting next to him again 15 minutes later, not knowing where to look any more than he knew how to take a bite out of a Grand Magnum if you don't happen to call the flexible jaws of a snake your own. The truth, which I had not let him in on, was: There was no right way. The Grand Magnum was designed to teach awe and show limits. A lesson in humility. And an equally gross and beguiling mixture of fat, water, gristle and bacteria, but if you look at it like that, not actually very different from the human body itself.  
So he was sitting there, trying to eat this thing with some semblance of dignity, which naturally turned out to be a futile endeavor that only got more awkward and embarrassing with each pathetic attempt, than the whole situation was to begin with. Even with his mouth closed I could hear him chew, a sound that seemed deafening in the silence surrounding us, and which was only interrupted by a single but no less unaesthetic _Plop!_ when a mushy slice of tomato slipped out the other side of the bun while biting into it and fell onto the paper bag in his lap. By the end there was sauce sticking to his chin and the whole damn car stank of fast food. I felt like I had to say something, but 'Do you feel any different?' or 'Congratulations!' seemed like bad choices again, so I merely asked "Can we?"

And we could.

In the following night I had dreamed about him again for the first time since the incident. A certain kind of dream. Yeah, _that_ kind. It's not like the burger situation in its primitive nature had exerted some weird, erotic appeal, and neither had all those triglycerides made his lips shiny in a particularly sensual way, but... To be perfectly honest, I don't know for sure, but I guess this whole ordeal must have reminded me on a subconscious level of my own 'experiences something for the first time'-tactic and what I'm trying to accomplish with it. That must have been enough to resurrect the deeply buried link between Rufus and sex. It's an open secret which team he's batting for, but he had never send any signals in my direction.  
And I wasn't gullible enough to convince myself he'd been trying to seduce me in a bad imitation of my own shtick, with his breath smelling of cheap flavor enhancers for the first time, all just to finally bury the hatchet. Personally, I've always felt comfortable playing for both teams, but as far as women were concerned, there had never been any feelings involved. That's why it made more sense to stick with them, me being a Turk and everything. Anything coming remotely close to a normal relationship would have been impossible anyway. As for Shinra, there had been feelings involved, at least for a while, but I had done everything in my power to eradicate them, considering that with Rufus Shinra not even an unnormal relationship seemed possible. And also due to the fact that there had been said incident.   
What the burger story and the dream made me realize, however, was on the one hand that I had done well never to extend my shtick to food, and on the other hand that I was not over him.

I had never talked to anyone about it, although some must have guessed. First and foremost Rufus himself. The few people who came into question would have reacted with disbelief or amusement, at least in the beginning. As for me, it's pretty obvious where the doubts would have come from. I was just a primitive, prehistoric Turkle with nothing to offer. As for him, I would have had no explanation for the lack of understanding, because as far as I'm concerned there's no one else who's as easy to fall in love with. Provided he's your type of course, and you're one of the lucky few who regularly spend time in his immediate vicinity. You don't need to be close to him to find out that he's charismatic and a good speaker. Owning a TV would suffice. Sure, he has his flaws, and you're bound to notice them especially if you have to be by his side at all times, but you also can't help but come to see that you can't have as good a conversation with anyone else as you can with him. And this fact became my undoing back in Healin. No matter how busy we were with Edge and the sick, there was just too much free time. Rufus felt that more than any of us, and since he wasn't exactly in a condition to take up hiking or free climbing as his new hobby, all he could do once again was talk. So we talked.

The first surprise was that it was neither dull nor exhausting. Everyone knows he's well educated, highly intelligent, but above all narcissistic, and most would probably expect that every conversation with him would lead after 15 minutes at the latest to a monologue, at the climax of which he would ejaculate with his eyes rolled back, while quoting some dead philosopher. But that wasn't the case. No subject, no cue I carelessly threw his way, was beneath him. And he always stayed on topic, he never hogged it in order to gallop off into realms where no ordinary mortal could have followed him. Not only that, he had an almost uncanny sixth sense for when I was in the mood for a deep dive and when I wanted to paddle on the surface. He never had to correct himself or change course either; as if he was able to tell simply by giving me a quick look when I entered; always carefully studying my expression and body language to be able to adjust in time.   
One time I was greeted with "Off the top of your head, Reno - what do you associate with singularity?", on another occasion with: "May I introduce you to my new accountant? His name is Walter Duffkin." - with those words he had opened his hand to reveal the grasshopper in his palm, that must have accidentally strayed into his room. In retrospect, I think it was to Walter's great advantage to have done so on a day when I was in a good mood. If I hadn't been, Rufus probably would've eliminated and secretly disposed of him as soon as I had stepped inside.  
The second surprise was that he showed interest in my views. He always gave my ideas enough space, never interrupted me, and when he couldn't be sure whether I had come to an end for the time being, he paused for a long time before speaking again himself. And each of his words, every question, showed that his thoughts had not once trailed off but always stayed with me. He wasn't above - and that was the third surprise - admitting when he didn't know something. But even then were his views and speculations always sound and fascinating.

Now, one could think I just needed someone to talk to. That my work had left me so lonely and starved for close interpersonal relationships that Rufus merely filled a hole. But then you'd forget the fact that I've always found him hot and dreamed of a totally different kind of hole getting filled by him. And this, coupled with this sudden intellectual intimacy, knocked me over the edge. Perhaps the only thing about our stay in Healin that came as no surprise for a change. For a few weeks I let myself believe what we had meant something. That it could lead somewhere, if only we were stupid enough to let it happen.

Until he made a mistake.

It was drizzling that day. I was standing at the window, looking outside and thinking about something. Or maybe I wasn't, in any case, there was nothing left to say for the moment, so we had fallen silent. Until he asked me out of the blue if there was anything that held a special meaning to me, because it hadn't existed or been available under the plate. That really impressed me. That he didn't take it for granted, like everyone else. Maybe that was the reason why I didn't just start my usual routine at that point, despite him basically begging for it.  
I mean, I could have lied and spontaneously opened the window to let the drizzle turn my shirt transparent after all, but aside from the fact that he probably wouldn't have fallen for that, I didn't want to devalue everything we had built up in such a cheap way. So I laughed instead, and then I told him everything. The whole story with Kelandra, my tactic, how it came about, and how I feel about it. Under which conditions something becomes meaningful. Basically everything I have opened with here. I even told him about the fucking onions, thus unknowingly spoiling my little act of revenge much later.  
We got interrupted when Elena knocked on the door. I'm not sure anymore what she wanted; but she stuck her head in for a moment and Rufus put her off. I can't remember the exact words he used, but what I do remember is his pronunciation. Something about it was suddenly different. It was the direct, seamless comparison to how he had talked just seconds before that made me notice the subtle change in the first place. And then it hit me: When talking to me, he had used my own dialect. Though only traces of it, it had definitely been there. My own telling way of forming sounds with my tongue.  
Ever so faint and nuanced that it had never crossed the threshold of my perception. Which meant it had been purely intentional. It's not uncommon to adopt the pronunciation or even entire dialect of a conversational partner, in most instances it doesn't happen on purpose. But when it happens naturally, the result tends to be way more obvious. This right here had been nothing but deliberate manipulation, and like a time-lapse all those moments flashed before my mind's eye, in which he got me to reveal more about myself with the help of this seemingly shared trait and what I had thought to be a sixth sense.  
Once this piece fell into place, others followed. My repeatedly mirrored way of sitting. Copied mannerisms. Terms completely uncharacteristic of him, which he had picked up from me and suddenly used himself shortly thereafter. Had he been anyone else, I wouldn't have thought much of it or dismissed it as purely coincidental. And a big part of me - the one that had been stupid enough to fall in love - wanted to do just that. He wasn't anyone else though, he was Rufus Shinra. Calculating, cunning and leaving nothing to chance. But also human and apparently so concentrated on playing his game with me, that Elena had managed to knock him off stride, or at least drive him into a corner.   
We exchanged one final, long glance and I could tell that he knew he was busted. Most importantly, I heard it: For the first time he was speechless.

And that was it. With our conversations, but primarily with my hope that the guy might actually be genuinely interested in me, or anyone for that matter, barring his own divine self, of course. After that, everything was different. I did my best to avoid him, and only talked to him when there were others around and it was work related. At some point, when we had already relocated to Edge, he suddenly wanted to sit in the passenger seat for the first time. There's an expression in Wutai that an adamantaimai is in the room, when something unpleasant is hanging unspoken in the air. I'm positive that during this ride it wasn't even his intention to piss me off yet, he just wanted to sit in the front, because there was no room in the back thanks to the adamantaimai. It started about half a mile in:

"I miss our conversations."  
"Huh. I don't."  
"May I ask why not?"  
"'cause it was all one huge, steaming pile of bullshit. A game you played. Nothing was authentic. I think you wouldn't even know how to be authentic, if you tried."  
"I have never lied to you."  
"Shit, that's not what I mean! You've been manipulating me for weeks to get me to open up and tell you more about myself, and for what?! ...'cause you were bored and the TV program was trash?! ....I was stupid enough to think you'd really care."  
"I did!"  
"Yeah right, 'cause it was more entertaining to dissect a tardigrade like me than to stare at the ceiling! ...Wanna know what's even worse? I thought you were showing me some private side and not putting on an act for a change. I thought that the whole thing... ....would mean something to you... Just like it- .... ....Whatever, doesn't matter anymore."  
"Reno..."  
"- Did you manipulate me or not?"  
"...Yes."  
"Yes, what?!"  
"Yes, I did. ...If you -"  
"- Thanks. No further questions."

Was certainly a bit childish, my reaction. I had basically dumped all my feelings in his lap like trade show brochures, just to get him to shut up. It was successful in the short term, but in the long term it made everything between us much more tense, as you can probably imagine. He continued to insist on sitting in the front whenever the opportunity arose, but our communication from then on was...

"By the way Reno, did you know that I own two vineyards?"  
Heck, I don't even know why it's called 'vineyard' and not 'wineyard'.  
"Uh-huh?"

...like that.

"Yes. ...It's ironic in a way. In any case, it's amusing."  
10 Gil say it's not, but go on.  
"How so?"  
"Because I've never been drunk."  
You owe me 10 Gil.  
"Don't get it; what has one to do with the other?"  
"Wine. Alcohol. Drinking."  
"Yeah, I get that part, but when I think of a vineyard owner, I don't think of some drunk, but one of those connoisseur freaks. You know, guys like that Burk dude just now, who only taste, and don't even swallow."

As soon as I had finished speaking I realized myself what a colossal, completely unsalvageable fuck up my specific wording had been. It hung over our heads like the fast food cloud two weeks before, but that's what I can use in my defense: It was after the burger incident, thus after my dreams of him had returned, and for a mixture of fat, water, gristle and bacteria, Rufus looked really beguiling that day. Even more so than usual. Verbally off putting as always, but physically all the more enticing.  
It was a hot late afternoon. We were just on our way back from a vineyard opening ceremony 25 miles to the east of Edge, and I had spent the pleasantly quiet minutes beforehand pondering the term vineyard, because it didn't make sense to me why it was spelled with a 'v', when 'wine' wasn't. Probably some linguistic remnant of ye olden days, when the 'w' hadn't been invented yet. Neither did it occur to me, why it was called 'yard' when it was clearly a hill most of the time. In case of the one we were just returning from, not a particularly steep one. To call it an 'opening' was a bit misleading, too. I mean, the vines had already been planted and were happily growing, without waiting for today's ceremony. The biggest irony however was, that thanks to Rufus' visit, the yard had never been, strictly speaking, as closed off and unopened as it was that morning, and ever will be again. In the end, all the terminology probably didn't matter, unlike the fact that the proud owner - that Burk dude - was some fat cat with political ambitions, and Rufus was interested in having them coincide with his.  
In any case, my musings had successfully distracted me from the breeze in his hair and the fact that at one point he had casually rolled up both sleeves and undone the top two buttons of his shirt as if it were the most normal thing in the world. It probably was, given the temperature, and the fact that he was hot could not be overlooked. His face was red and shiny like his burger lips two weeks before, but this time it looked really seductive.  
Now you might ask why the president's limousine - even if it was only the small one - apparently didn't have air conditioning, and to that I can only reply: it did. But just three days before, there had been a huge drop in temperature, and my last, not particularly original act of revenge had been to claim that the HVAC system was broken, and that was still his state of knowledge. After that it had been easier to stick with the lie than to come up with even more lies about imaginary repairs and start another awful conversation, but I couldn't foresee that he would open those fucking buttons.  
In my distress I couldn't think of anything better than to lower both windows a bit, hoping that the draft would cool him - but most of all me - down a bit. Only I had shot myself in the foot again by doing so, because now I had to permanently watch in the corner of my eye how his damn strands danced in the wind like spiteful golden assholes. Our route led over a rural road and I swear by Gaia, even the trees on either side of us had conspired against me, by forming together with the sun this blotchy, disco-ball-like web of light and shadow that slid hypnotically over his body. So, in summary, he looked sweaty, disheveled, messy, in short: fucked, and Mother Nature, the mischievous bitch, had nothing better to do than to shine a spotlight on him.  
Keeping this in mind, my verbal faux pas is pretty understandable and it's probably just as understandable that I was in the mood for another, small act of revenge. My plan with the burger onions had been neither Grand nor Magnum, as we all know, and the air conditioning idea had turned out to be a boomerang, so this time I wanted to bring out the big guns.

"Tss, never been drunk before..... We should change that. For real, man. You don't have anything lined up tomorrow, do you?"  
"I still don't feel like throwing up for hours."  
"Nah! That only happens when you mix or drink the wrong stuff. I don't have any plans today. Can keep an eye on you if you want."  
"What would I get out of it?"  
"Well, you'd know what your limit actually is, but to find out, you have to cross it sometimes."

This was complete nonsense, of course, because it seemed like a safe bet that he had never been drunk, precisely because he had a good feeling for said limit, but I just hoped he wouldn't figure that out on his own. Maybe the heat would help. I also hoped he would explain my spontaneous selflessness with a desire to get our relationship back to normal.

"Come on, live a little. Your schedule's always full of boring shit, where's the fun?"  
"You would stay sober? Intervene if necessary?"  
Took the bait!  
"Heh, sure." 

I don't know how I had expected the evening to end. But I know what I had hoped for: That we would finally be all over each other, rip our shirts off, slam each other against some walls, and fuck like animals. I had every intention to go through with it and hopelessly take advantage of his condition until he would have regretted not having taken the onions.

But Rufus was one step ahead of me, as usual, and as soon as we got to his apartment and I had handed him a bottle of gin, he planted his ass in a tiny cocktail chair. A cocktail chair is about the best protection against first sexual advances there is, because it leaves the wooer with only three options: Either you approach the sitting person and start doing weird things with their hair from above - like at the hairdresser's; or you sit on their lap, which might work if you're female and fourteen at most; or you squat down in front of them to immediately get down to business, which will most likely end up being more than just a little awkward if no green light has been given on some level beforehand. In a nutshell: A cocktail chair leaves no room for subtle probing and testing.  
So I sat alone on his huge couch 13 feet away, waiting for him to give me green light to jump off and slide on my knees across the parquet directly between his legs. But that didn't happen. He never opened his thighs, focused me with half-closed eyes and licked his lips. He also never said "Jump off, slide across the parquet and suck me off!"  
Instead, he said pretty much everything else. Some become melancholic and whiny when they drink. Others horny or aggressive. Still others are just in a good mood or get tired. And then there's the kind that won't stop talking for the life of them. You'd think Rufus wouldn't fall into the last category, given that he doesn't do anything but talk all the time anyway. That something completely different in him would take the opportunity to finally break free. But that couldn't be more off the mark. What erupted was nothing more than all the verbal diarrhea he'd been forced to keep to himself all those sober years before, and which had accumulated into a huge mountain. A real mountain, not just some vineyard hill, open or not.  
After 40 minutes I gave up and stretched out on the couch. My only remaining hope was that he would go take a piss sometime, so that I could intercept him by leaning in the door frame - perhaps not necessarily the one to the bathroom - with a crooked smile, to finally stuff his mouth with my tongue. Fuck, it would at least have given me an opportunity to throw that damn cocktail chair accidentally out the window.  
But he didn't go take a piss. He talked. A lot.

"Reno, did you know I like prime numbers? They're uncompromising. You could say they are like me."

"...There is also the rumor that I started this rumor myself, but that is nonsense, Reno! Of course, no one has ever seen me bleed or cry, but please, when do you ever see a grown person bleed or cry in public? Have you ever seen the cashier at the supermarket bleed or cry? See, and she's out in public significantly longer every day than I could ever be!"

"Demons, Reno!!! Demons! And their name isn't Legion; it's spelled S-H-A-R-E-H-O-L-D-R-E.... S-H-A-E-R-H... Reno, be so good as to spell shareholder."

"...Have you heard this one yet, Reno? Two ampere walk into a bar, the bartender asks: 'Watt will it be?' ....Wait.... That one only works written...."

"Next week we'll go to the garden and watch butterflies! Beautiful butterflies! I've seen proof!" 

"....and I swear to you Reno, it was Strife! On a dolphin! ...You believe me, right?"

At that point I got up to take a piss. I didn't have to. But I wanted to have to.

"Reno? Would you bring me a pen and a piece of paper on the way back? I want to write down the punch line of that joke for you..."

When I came back, it was him lying stretched out on the pre-warmed couch, so I had no choice but to let myself fall backwards into an armchair, so that the whole thing had something of a psychoanalytical session. One where the therapist was the one suffering.

".....Nananaki! In an infanantry uniform! ...Reno? You believe me... don't you? I know you believe in me, but do you believe me? That's very important!"

"Why do bees hum? - ....Wait... It'll get back to me in a second..."

"...I love butterflies. They remind me of my own way in a certain biography..."

"Hey Rufus, ever heard of that drinking game where one person counts backwards from 100 with their eyes closed and the other prepares something funny in that time? Come on, you count first!"

"And whass the... funny thing you wan' do?"

Go home.

"Ah, it's a surprise!"

"100...99...98... ......Aaah, Reno!!! Because they forgot the lyrics! ...Get it??......... .....Reno..? ....97..."

11 days later it was time to actually visit that botanical garden, like he had drunkenly announced and which unfortunately had turned out to be not just some alcohol induced brain fart. It was hot again, and that alone would have been bearable, but above all it was oppressively humid. For the early evening they had announced heavy thunderstorms, only the event was not scheduled for the early evening, but noon.  
First we walked through some kind of park and you could never be too sure which plant was intentionally planted and therefore special, and which had always been there or fell into the weeds category. Of course you don't want to look at those for a prolonged time, that would be like applauding at the wrong point during a classical concert. I was in the lucky position of being able to pull down my goggles and did exactly that.  
Afterward, we were in a greenhouse where it was a thousand times more humid, and Rufus had to wander from sign with botanical name to sign with botanical name, looking intrigued, while the associated Asteraceae plants acted as if they were suddenly more interesting with a sign and botanical name than when you see them every day on the side of the road. The only good thing about the signs was that, unlike in the park, at least you knew immediately when to look intrigued.  
Then we went to the butterfly house and that was a real disaster.  
First of all, there were no butterflies to be seen anywhere and if there were, then somewhere in the distance. But that wasn't the worst. They had piled up fresh bark mulch recently and it stank like hell. So overwhelmingly that everyone present had to use all their remaining strength that hadn't fallen victim to the humidity yet, to pretend that nothing was wrong. You could see this epic struggle in every single face. It reminded me of what it's like when you're in an elevator with loose acquaintances and suddenly it smells like fart. On the one hand you want to comment on it to make it clear that it wasn't you, on the other hand you know that it must have been one of them and that you would only make that person feel even more embarrassed. So you discreetly look around and see that everyone else is sharing your dilemma.   
In the exact same way, we were all standing around in that stuffy greenhouse. Smiling convulsively and praising the invisible butterflies, while it was written in every face how nasty the bark mulch smelled.  
You just knew that secretly everyone was praying that someone would finally say something, just to take that extra pressure - besides the one caused by the humidity - out of the situation, but no one said anything except 'Aaah' and 'Oooh' when the shadow of an imaginary wing fluttered by in the distance. In the end, everyone was disappointed. Rufus, because no butterfly wanted to settle on his hand, the press, because they didn't get a PR-worthy photo of Rufus with a butterfly on his hand, and the rest, because no butterflies were to be seen, neither on Rufus' hand nor anywhere else.

On the way back, the weather was just about to turn. The garden complex was quite a few miles out there, in the transition zone to the Grasslands, where the soil was fertile again. Unfortunate from a logistical point of view, but the only way to realize something like this. In recent times, some kind of agricultural belt had formed there, based on the motto 'as close as possible, as far as necessary'. And that's how we got to enjoy a pretty awesome view. A uniformly gray sky, in front of which endless canola fields on both sides glowed in an almost unnaturally strong yellow, as if Gaia had turned up the contrast. On the right, the approaching thunderstorm was already visible on the horizon, and every now and then you could see the brief flickering of the first lightning in the distance in the corner of your eye. Only the accompanying thunder was missing. Perhaps it was still too far away and drowned out by the running engine.  
Rufus was sitting in the passenger seat as usual. But another thing was not as usual: He was silent. 

As much as his babbling had regularly gotten on my nerves, I had gotten used to it by now, and this persistent silence, which I was no longer used to, was even more irritating. But that wasn't the only thing. He seemed kind of...

"Okay, what's wrong?"  
"Nothing."

...like this.

I didn't know why, but he was obviously feeling like shit. And suddenly, I could no longer keep it up. This whole circus that our relationship had degenerated into. I felt sorry for him. I was in love. And both of those facts just hurt at that moment.

"Spit it out."  
"You're going to laugh at me."  
"If you're giving me the rare chance - probably."  
"...I was hoping this event would be one I'd get something out of as well, for a change. Something beyond successful image building."  
"....Heh, you really do like butterflies, huh?"  
"Did you know that I've never seen one up close?"  
"Really?"  
"They get reduced to their magnificence, but if you think about it more carefully, they are tragic creatures. Once they have completed their metamorphosis -"  
"- All right, shut up again. ..........And hold on."

I admit I only said the latter because, for one thing, I've always wanted to say it, and for another, I've always wanted to say that I've always wanted to say something.  
Just like I'd love to say that I forcefully steered to the side and crashed into the canola - part of the Brassicaceae family, by the way - with squealing tires; but if the side window had knocked Rufus out or some world-weary butterfly had burst on the windshield, it would have meant the premature end of my plan. That's why I took my foot off the gas, carefully steered over, and we rolled quite comfortably into the field. Not as impressive, but being impressive was the butterflies' job.

"What is this?"  
"Get out. We're watching butterflies."

Before he could protest, I turned off the engine and unbuckled. His protest would have been a mere formality anyway, because I hadn't missed the little twitch of the corner of his mouth. Fleeting as the flashes that were now in front of us, but just as unmistakable.  
Of course, in my boundless spontaneity, I hadn't thought about the fact that getting out of the car wouldn't be that easy. The plants grew not only very thick, but also very high, and reached up to our ribs. But somehow we actually managed to make our way around the car, and then... ...then we just stood there. Side by side, with our butts leaning against the hood, while the storm cell hovered toward us like a gigantic, blue-gray jellyfish, already hurling scattered, thick raindrops in our direction. Below its pronounced shelf cloud, the world seemed to end. Complete blackness, in which colorful lights flickered without pause. And now, outside, the low, steady rumble of thunder could finally be heard.

"This baby is gonna bring some neat downbursts with it. Heh. See that turquoise area there?"  
"Yes."  
"That means hail."  
"I thought weather phenomena didn't hold any fascination for you...?"  
"They don't. Just... ...Rufus, did you actually know I'm a pilot?"

I might have been a primitive tardigrade. A Turkle. But one with a pilot's license.

"Touché."

This time his smile stayed a little longer. So long, in fact, that I almost turned my head toward him. Definitely long enough to cause a tickling tug in the pit of my stomach. Maybe this whole idea, no matter how well-meaning, was an even bigger boomerang than all my revenge plans before.

"There are no butterflies here."  
Oh yes, there are....  
"I mean, it's raining. Maybe they've gone inside."

I pretended not to hear his soft snort. But I did hear it and felt it even more. For a while we were silent again, watching the storm approach.

"You never told me how your last rendezvous with Kelandra ended. We were interrupted."  
"Doesn't matter. The point was the birth of my ruse."  
"I want to hear it, though."  
You don't.  
"................You don't."  
You really don't.

"Yes, I do, and now I insist."

He was the only one I had ever told the first half of the story. And I had firmly intended to take the second half to the grave.

"Fine, but I don't want to hear you complain afterward! .....So, she really wanted to show me her car, which she hardly ever drove anyway, because she was way too scared. Was a gift from her parents for her 19th birthday. They earned pretty well, worked at ShinRa, but who didn't. She was still living with them, and swore they'd be out."

"Let me guess, they barged in."

"Tss, I wish that would've been it! ...So, I went along, because everything looked like she was finally gonna let me have some, because of my rainless childhood. And I also wanted to use the opportunity to finally get rid of... my indisposition, you know. I told her I had to piss, I mean, at least it wasn't a lie and better than the whole truth, and she had to get the car keys anyways. So we went into the apartment and there really was no one else there. Was a big apartment on the first floor. She showed me where the bathroom was, and then left and shouted something to me about her car, but I didn't really understand her and already had the door half closed. I pissed, like, a gallon, I was tipsy, if you remember, and I ran out of time to do my trick. I didn't want her to think that I was taking a dump, that wouldn't have been very sexy, which was the whole point."

A second snort. "What trick?"

"The trick of how to get rid of abdominal air in the most discreet way, when you're around someone you intend to fuck! ...Okay, if anyone can't be familiar with that, it's you, so.... I wanted to camouflage it with the sound of the flushing! In the slums, the toilets always had these outdated levers that flushed as long as you held them down, and that came really handy! But her toilet had instead two buttons up there on the wall. One was this water-saving eco-flush for Avalanche soy boys, and the other one standard, I suppose. Usually those buttons are different sizes, but in her case they were absolutely the same. I didn't want to have to flush multiple times, because that would have been suspicious, and I couldn't be sure how much time I'd have because of the identical buttons. You know, whether it would be the short or extended flush. So I got into starting position, but I had already kept it in too long and had a real problem. Let's say, the monster was so huge by now that it fit no longer through the door and had retreated in a huff. ...I started counting down from ten in my mind and then pressed for my life with my finger and ass at the same time, because it was like a rocket launch, where you only have the one try and everything has to work instantly."

He gave a short laugh. "I'm quite familiar with that."

"You are! Anyway, my ass worked. I let off the loudest bomb ever, 170 decibels, 11 on the Richter scale. Woke up three Weapons with it, but they went right back to sleep when they realized it was just some Turk rookie farting in Sector 8. My finger also worked, but what didn't work was... ...the fucking button!!! I had apparently hit the eco flush and it didn't even seem to be connected to the plumbing. I had no idea at the time that some people just like the look of those dual flush buttons, but have no intention of ever using both! Maybe it even was the light switch for the stairwell, what do I know! Anyway, so I fart loud enough to herald the birth of a parallel universe, and what does the fucking, piece of shit button do?! ...- it 'Clack's!"   
  
The third snort became a soft laugh that lingered. "What did you do then?"

"Knock over a cabinet!!! ...- Okay, look, I thought, if I make another noise fast enough that kinda sounds the same, she won't notice it was a fart the first time! There was a narrow, tall bathroom cabinet with feet that looked like it would make a loud, hollow _'brrroooop'_ when you dragged it across the tiles, and that would have been perfectly accurate! So I thought, if I let it _brrroooop_ a few times, she'll think 'Oh! That's the cabinet! Then it was the cabinet from the beginning!' But it didn't work because I grabbed the damn thing too far up and pulled with too much force. All the heavy stuff was on the lower shelves, so it almost fell onto me and I was barely able to jump to the side in time."

His laughter swelled. "Assu.... Assuming, it would have worked: What... What would have been your explanation for moving her bathroom inventory?

"I was drunk and desperate, man! Maybe I was also hoping that the cabinet sound waves would be a bit faster than the fart sound waves, so both would reach her at the same time and neutralize each other in her ears! ....But wait, there's even more! Okay, so I knew everything was lost. I mean, what else was I supposed to do? Tear down the sink to make a noise that sounds like a cabinet being knocked over?! So I did what I had learned during my training - When a fight is definitely hopeless: retreat! The window was ajar, so I pulled it completely open and quickly jumped out, remember, it was on the first floor."

With a short sideways glance, I could see that his face had turned red and the first tears had formed in the corners of his eyes. "You... You could have... could... the door -"

"- I never wanted to see her again, and it was blocked by the cabinet anyway! ...But now comes the worst part: So I swung myself outside and landed in the backyard, directly in front of her feet, because she had parked her fucking car there and had already gone ahead! That was probably what she had shouted earlier, what I couldn't understand. And I could see in her eyes that she had heard everything, Rufus, everything! ...That moment, my inner Turk switch flipped."

"You eliminated her?" he asked, sobbing, after several attempts. At least, I'm pretty confident that's what it was supposed to mean.

"..........Almost! So I straightened up, and started looking around frantically, and asked: 'Did you see which way he went?!' I thought if my act was believable enough, she wouldn't question why she hadn't seen my spontaneously made up burglar, or why he was farting around in her bathroom. Before she could answer, I ran off to supposedly give chase, and made a lengthy plea to Verdot to no longer having to patrol Sector 8."

"What did you say?"

"..... 'Come on, man!'.."

I don't know how long he laughed, when I started laughing myself, and when we stopped infecting each other. But when we were done, the storm cell was right in front of us, taking up the whole sky.

"If this is the result of your Turk switch flipping, I should start worrying about my safety."  
"Hey, I was a rookie and drunk as a skunk! Heh... I'm worried, too, if these are the deep conversations you've been missing. But you know what? Even if I wanted to die at that moment, on the whole there's many things I gotta thank Kelandra for. Most of all, that I was able to cheer you up with that story. Never heard you laugh like that."

I had wanted to take the second half of the story to the grave with me. So, why didn't I? Because I knew it would cheer him up. And because I wanted to hear that very laughter.  
The shelf cloud was just beginning to loom directly over us, like the maw of a monster about to swallow the world. Or a damn big Grand Magnum. He pushed himself off the hood, walked awkwardly a few steps forward through the thick flowers, and tilted his head back.

"Just look at that, Reno..."

I preferred to look at him. I'm not romantic, so I won't describe how the wind turned the field into a surging sea. How the first squalls tugged at his hair and shirt, while he defied them motionless, fearlessly looking the storm in the black eye. How, at last, the increasing rain gradually put an end to this game; how strands and fabric became heavier and heavier, starting to cling to his body, sensually tracing the contours, reducing the previous game to a mere foreplay and, at the same time, fullfilling its sweet promise. - Fullfilling. Never full. - A state that gave birth to a new promise, no less appealing in its libidinous, everluring nature, leaving me starving, far from hope, with the bluest of balls.  
...Instead, I'll just say that the rain turned his shirt transparent and he looked really hot.

"It's getting pretty uncomfortable. We should get back inside."

So we did. Soaked to the bone and not a second too soon. Just as we had pulled the doors shut, the first downburst send heavy rain. The world around us went pitch black, except for the incessant flickering behind the water wall. The rumbling had become not only audible but palpable.

"Are you cold? Want me to turn on the heat?"  
"Is it fixed?"  
"..... ....Yea~ah."  
"I'm not cold."

Then came the hail. Deafeningly loud, with hailstones as big as ping-pong balls. I knew we were safe, but I felt the need to say something.

"Nothing can happen to us, okay? We're in a Faraday cage with bulletproof windows."  
"I'm not scared."  
"....Tss, there's no way in hell we'll get the car out of that mud by ourselves. I'll call the others as soon as we have reception again. ....Looks like we'll have to sit it out till then."

So we sat it out; but at first we just sat and stared straight ahead, even though there wasn't much to see. After the first hailstorm came rain again. The gusts started to bury the windshield in loose canola plants.

And then... ... _He_ felt the need to say something.

"Reno, did you know that I've never -"

"- Just stop... ....What are you pulling here, anyway? All these last weeks, this whole show.... At first I thought it was a coincidence, but it's my own act that you've been using on me this whole time. Did you really think I wouldn't notice?"

"It's not your act. It's the exact opposite."

"So I'm just imagining that you're suddenly having all these 'Rufus does something for the first time' moments, always making sure that I not only know, but that I'm also right there with you?"

"In your case, those things never mattered, right? You just pretended they did to manipulate women. For me, it's different. Everything meant something to me. Sometimes more, sometimes less. ......To you, on the other hand, it meant something to see a private side of mine. You were rightly disappointed when you had to find out that I hadn't been authentic. I'm afraid I can't get out of my skin as soon as I open my mouth. Unfortunately, you never gave me a chance to explain to you what I'd been trying to accomplish. So I felt compelled to try a different method to get you to understand. ........Whenever you experience or do something for the first time, it is authentic. Only when you are familiar with it, you can start lying and manipulating. But to do that, you have to know it; it doesn't work any other way. ......This applies to everything, whether it's eating a burger or flushing a toilet, as you had to find out in a rather painful way. .......All these moments lately.... They were only 'Rufus experiences something for the first time' moments in the second regard. Primarily they were 'Reno experiences how Rufus experiences something for the first time, and is therefore being authentic' moments. .........Because I knew that would mean something to you, unlike rain. .........................Because it was my way of showing you that I care."

I could feel his waiting gaze on me, so I finally turned to him. He looked like a wet poodle. Just as miserable, just as fucking adorable. There it was again, the intimacy I had missed so much, and this time it came with a tempting bonus for returning subscribers. Everything I had dreamed of, plus 50% off the coffee machine.  
And that was all well and good, and more than that. There was just one problem:

"....But isn't that at the end of the day another tactic, only a more elaborate one?"

"Heh, does it matter?" The left corner of his mouth formed a crooked smile.

And it didn't matter.


End file.
